I dont think the troops will be seeing them anytime soon i think though...kinda shows you how much the government values the lifes of soldiers in their little geo-political adventures to not have enough in the first place.Not to think about it years later...

I have been trying to understand this story.
Why can't we just buy the software for them, that must be cheaper than converting them. Or are there problems with the software still.

Weren't a lot of crashes blamed on engine management software?

Anyway how do you order more? Do you just ring up Boeing and press 1 on your touch tone phone for sales? or do you fax a purchase order? or perhaps they have an online store?

But then the UK wouldn't buy new, we probably buy used ones from USA which are worn out and then put in Rolls Royce engines and spend the next 5 years trying to make them work.

Gordon Brown is the biggest ass I've ever seen. He's so arogant it's unreal, he won't even admit his mistakes let alone step down. If he hasn't ordered more helicopters, would you be suprised? I mean he doesn't give 2 flips about them poor bastards over there.

If the Brits need some helicopters to boost their ops in durka-durkastan, why not just strip their naval destroyers and frigates of some of their helicopters and transfer them to the battle zone? With the exception of the Somalian coastal area, most of the helicopters based on these ships are convienient tools during (relative) peacetime. So send the choppers with their naval crews over to durka-durkastan and get the job done and stop all this damn complaining when the solution is right under your nose.

The thing is Britain has around 500 helicopters... yet only about 30 are in Afghanistan right now?

From what i can gather they are refitting some of the merlins that we already have and some of the Chinooks (MK3's?) that we bought a few years ago and have sat idle ever since due to software problems, still wondering why it is taking up to a year to refit and train the pilots for these though?

Originally posted by Thirst
The thing is Britain has around 500 helicopters... yet only about 30 are in Afghanistan right now?

A simple count of helicopters is a tad misleading. The UK does not have 500 transport heliocopters.

In 2006 - according to Flight International (so don't take below as read), the UK had:

RAF - 40 Chinook; 22 Merlin; 35 Puma
RN - 40 Merlin
AAC - er, nothing

Not sure if the infamous 8 Chinook with-software-problems which cannot fly are included.

Loads of Lynx, Gazelle, Sea King, Apache and a smattering of other types.

Regards

Maybe they keeping as much harware in UK for later this year?

Dont forget Prince Wills needs one for going to stag dos and picking up his chums on the way.

Although more helicopters may save a few lives, we can never win this war.

Gordon would have issues ordering a takeaway, let alone a helicopter, the plan is, get the choppers back from Iraq, tosh them up, give the crews a fly round the block, then put these tired old workhorses back on the front line.

For a fraction of the cost we bailed out the banks, or lost money selling gold at a all time low we could have given our troops something they deserve.

We can expect this state of the art hardware to be ready at the end of the year, in the meantime the IED technology is increasing at an alarming rate.

Why hello!

I used to live on a RAF base, RAF Shawbury to be precise. Its a helicopter oriented base for training and what not. One of the princes has just trained there. Now interesting enough, we have a whole amount of apaches just sitting in some hangers. Maybe gordons growing some balls and dispatching them?